Inbound links (or backlinks) are links that are directed to your website from some other website. For example, this link points to the BBC news website and is therefore an inbound link for the BBC. Some say that inbound links are one of the most fundamental aspects of determining a websites rank, and we completely agree. In our experience both backlinking and good quality content should be the driving force of any successful SEO campaign.
Inbound links are seen as the “currency” of the internet. A website with many inbound links will naturally rank better in search engines.
Before SEO was such a big thing, back in the early days of the web, search engines pretty much determined the rankings of websites based on how many backlinks there were to a given website. Now things have completely changed and SEO is far more complex (especially with Google’s new Penguin & Panda updates). That said, good quality backlinks from relevant sites still do hold a lot of weight in determining a websites search engine position. Backlinking should be approached with caution, and there are a few things that you should bare in mind when trying to obtain inbound links to your site…
See here for Google’s guide to inbound links.